Top Ten Most Annoying Kids Toys Ever

By: Serina Hajje, ellaslist

Birthdays, religious holidays, special occasions or a trip to the supermarket…all contribute to growing your child’s toy collection. And there’s always a well-meaning uncle/aunt/friend that gives that gift which inevitable turns into a nightmare for you. Check out our list of the top ten most annoying kids toys ever.

1. Karaoke Machine

Parents always want to be supportive and encouraging, but when your precious angel is screaming into the microphone in an earnest attempt to sing, you’re pushed to the brink. There are heaps of similar toys: the microphone enhancer, the singing guitar and more. It’s also one of those rare gifts that really seems to grab their attention for a lot longer than other toys. The only way to put an end to it is to take out the batteries and pretend that it’s broken. Sorry kids.

2. Screaming Rubber Toys

These hellish creatures are widely available online. If you squeeze they emit a hair raising scream that delights kids and has parents gritting their teeth. They began as a pet toy (no joke, for dogs actually) and someone on the Internet decided that kids could have a go too. You can get different kinds, from chickens to geese. Hopefully, it’s only a passing trend.

3. Whoopy Cushion

Whoopy cushions have survived for a very long time. When you have one in the house, it’s suddenly unsafe to sit anywhere without hearing that unique pffft noise, followed by the giggles of the culprit who put it there. A Whoopy cushion is the perfect gift for kids who want to annoy their parents beyond belief. The one good thing to be gained out of this gift, is that kids do get relatively bored after a short while.

4. Despicable Me Fart Blaster

If you’ve watched the Despicable Me films then you know what to expect. If you have a little Minion in the house then be sure to keep this gift out of their hands. The little contraption emits a banana like smell when you pull the trigger. Apparently, some of them yell out Minion-esque witty remarks too. Oh joy.

5. Nerf Guns

It seems like the perfect idea – harmless rubber bullets and a great excuse to expel the kids from the house. But then after a frantic shooting game you’ll find yourself on your hands and knees, looking for stray bullets or walking through Kmart for some spare bullets. More often than not, you’ll find the kids insisting on an all out war in the lounge, with upturned chairs and blankets.

6. Electronic Musical Toys

For some strange reason the output of the volume is bizarrely high on electronic music toys! As soon as your kids have the toy in their hand, it’s a non-stop concert of irritating tunes that you can’t escape from. Even if you ban the use of it to the garden, they’ll insist on having a special performance every few hours. They’re nice gifts for everyone except the mum or dad. And then there are drum kits – they don’t even need batteries to be annoying!

7. Science Kits

A gift that educates? Yes please… until you realise that you need to supervise them. Sometimes the instructions can be so baffling that parents are left sitting for an embarrassingly long time while your eager scientist either pesters you or starts experimenting. And of course they also happen to be some of the messiest gifts that you can give to a child, and the small parts that come with them are so small that they’re easy to lose and, unfortunately, irreplaceable.

8. Voice Distorter

A voice distorter is great when you want to hear your child follow you around the house and pretend to be a robot. They tend to have a long battery life and the voice options range from ‘irritating’, ‘robotic’ to ‘I need to take some Panadol’.

9. Furby

Yes, they are still alive. It seems like an innocent idea: a furry toy that learns to speak, what could possibly be wrong with it? But kids tend to leave them on, and Furby has no sense of bedtime, so you can hear it speak throughout the night. And then of course, after you’ve stared at it for a while, you realise just how freaky it looks. I mean, take a good hard look at these things.

10. Plastic Guns

These are hard but not impossible to get in Australia. They’re like a worse version of Nerf Guns because the bullets are small and they can be dangerous. Best to bin it as soon as it comes into your kids’ hands.